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Tamils admit leader is dead
Agence France Presse - May 26, 2009
Amal Jayasinghe in Colombo – Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers have admitted for the first time their leader was killed by government forces a week ago as the United Nations demanded better access for civilians displaced in recent fighting.
Almost a week after the Government said its troops had killed Velupillai Prabhakaran, 54, in an ambush, the Tigers' chief of international relations, Selvarasa Pathmanathan, acknowledged that the rebel leader was dead.
"We announce today with inexpressible sadness and heavy hearts that our incomparable leader, the supreme commander, attained martyrdom fighting the Sri Lankan Government," Mr Pathmanathan said in a statement on Sunday.
He seemed to suggest the Tigers would continue their campaign, saying Prabhakaran's "final request was for the struggle to continue until we achieved the freedom for his people."
The Government, however, has said the rebels' entire leadership has been wiped out and claimed victory in a decades-long war against the Tigers.
Mr Pathmanathan had on Tuesday told the pro-rebel website Tamilnet that Prabhakaran, the founder of the Tamil Tigers, was "safe and well", prompting the Government to broadcast footage of his corpse.
Meanwhile, the United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, left Sri Lanka after touring the island's embattled north and speaking with a few of the 300,000 ethnic Tamils displaced by recent fighting.
Sri Lanka has made it clear aid workers would not be allowed access until rebels hiding among the refugees have been weeded out.
The Government describes the camps as "welfare villages", but Tamil activists say they are "concentration camps" with inmates penned in behind barbed wire.
During his visit, Mr Ban urged the President, Mahinda Rajapaksa, to investigate alleged human rights violations committed during the defeat of the Tamil separatists.
The Government responded warily, promising only to "take measures to address those grievances". Mr Rajapaksa warned of "the likely presence of Tamil Tiger infiltrators among the large numbers who had come to the government areas".
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